Marc,
I spent Saturday in your city. My 6-year-old daughter and I were knocking on doors all over Philadelphia as a part of the Women for Obama volunteer mobilization. I was there to support my candidate and because I really wanted to hear what people on the ground in PA were saying about the election.
In the morning they mostly talked to me about issues: the economy, the war and education. By afternoon it was different. This is what kept happening:
Me: “Hi, we are volunteering with Obama for America and we are encouraging folks to come out and support Barack on April 22nd.”
Philadelphia resident who answered the door: “No problem. I like your guy. But did you hear what he said? Something about guns and God. Makes no difference to me, but he is going to have to worry about those folks out in Pennsatucky.”
Me: “Where?”
It turns out that some urban dwellers in Philly refer to their fellow citizens in the vast expanse of land between Market Street and Pittsburgh as Pennsatuckians; residents of the Alabama of the Northeast. According the press, the voters I talked to, and the Clinton machine, these folks like their guns, God and bitterness. Charlton Heston’s recent passing not withstanding, these voters are still not planning to relinquish them. (Although now that his hands are cold and dead I thought we might have a chance of wresting the weapons away.)
Now Obama’s Pennsylvania surge is seriously threatened because he argued accurately, that despite campaign promises, no administration in the past two decades, Republican or Clinton, has managed to seriously address blue-collar job loss. He argued a common theme of pundits, strategists, political researchers and populists: that Republicans for two decades have used wedge issues related to gun control, race and religion to draw working class white voters into political coalitions that do not serve their economic interests.
Opportunistic Clinton pounced. Now we are supposed to believe, the week after learning that her chief campaign strategist is brokering labor deals with Colombia that are even more destructive than her hubby’s beloved NAFTA, that she is a the blue-collar solidarity candidate?
HRC argues that this episode indicates Obama is unelectable. The Clinton camp says that McCain will paint Obama as an elitist. No doubt the GOP will let the multi-millionaire wife of a past president run as the candidate of the common man.
Since Bill told us last week, that at 60 Hillary can’t be expected to make good sense after 11PM, there will be no more telephone ringing at 3AM ads for HRC. I hear she is planning to be release an ad this week where she is duck hunting while reciting the Lord’s prayer. That’ll win ya Pennsatucky.
I don't believe it. Rural voters and urban voters want solutions. They want jobs that feed their family, provide access to health care and offer them security in their old age. I believe they want a president who reads books, thinks hard about tough issues, and takes all sides into account before rushing headlong into ill-advised policy. I have watched the people of downstate Illinois overcome other people's preconceived notions of them to support Barack in record numbers. I believe the people of Pennsylvania want change.
So Marc, what do you think? We all know you dislike Barack, but you have to agree that this is a bunch of sound and fury signifying nothing. (Please excuse the elitist Shakespearean reference)
Melissa
